Camille
Over the next two months, Camille remained preoccupied with worry over Jacqueline. Dr. Garnier kept his word and sent weekly reports, though he disguised them in chatty letters about his life in Rennes, more friend to friend than doctor to patient’s concerned sister. In those letters, Camille discovered a clever wordsmith. The descriptions of Rennes made her wish to visit the city and see its beauty with her own eyes. His letters were full of wit and charm, and he was vigilant with his reporting on Jacqueline’s health, usually one of three vague phrases. Camille preferred the happiest, we continue to see progress, over the less than positive, matters are no worse, or the most dreaded, challenges remain, but do not fret, Camille, this is common.
He never requested money, not even when he mentioned a new treatment he’d discovered, often couched inside a phrase about tending his little garden, a direct reference to Jacqueline. Camille sent what money she could anyway. Yesterday’s report had included the happiest of the three missives, and so, feeling less anxious than most nights, she stood in the hotel bar, half-hidden in shadow. Blinking through the gauzy haze of cigarette smoke, she watched the crowd with detached aversion.
How did Vivian stand the noise, the foul smells, the high-pitched laughter? Some of her disgust must have shown on her face because Frank approached her with a censorious scowl. “Try to keep your thoughts off your face, Camille. You are supposed to blend in, not draw attention to yourself.”
She shut her eyes, pushed down images of Jacqueline, and replaced them with the doctor who’d given her hope, and adopted the approximation of a serene smile. “Better?”
“Marginally.”
She readjusted her stance and glanced over the room again, past the smoke. Her eyes landed on Vivian and that detestable German. Why him? Why allow a known Nazi to woo her when she could have any man in France?
“Don’t judge her too harshly.”
Camille startled at Frank’s admonishment. “I wasn’t judging her.”
Obvious skepticism lifted his eyebrows. “No?”
“Well, yes, maybe I was. She deserves more than what a man like him can give her.”
Frank didn’t argue the point. “She has her reasons.”
Camille couldn’t think what would motivate such an unholy alliance. Too many women had chosen a similar route, disappearing into a comfortable life vastly different from the early days of Occupation. At first they’d stumbled about, eyes blinking in disbelief at the strange new world thrust upon them, but then, life at the Ritz had returned to a semblance of normalcy.
Parisian women dined with hard-eyed Nazis. They met each other for lunch and gossiped about the ones missing and ignored the fact that outside these hallowed walls, Paris was not back to normal. Anything but. Laws were passed that forced Jews to register, and prohibited them from certain professions like law, medicine, teaching.
Even Rachel was relegated to serving solely in the laundry. She was no longer allowed to venture into guest rooms, not even to change soiled towels and straighten rumpled bedcovers. If only Camille could shield her friend from the prejudice and ill treatment she received from their coworkers. She stood up for her when she could, but it wasn’t enough. “It’s not right.”
Frank misunderstood her meaning. “What would you have her do? Would you have her stay in her room, and what? Read the night away?”
Yes, she thought, Vivian should not be among these vipers, but she said, “No,” and covered her mouth to hide a yawn. “It just seems like an empty way to fill time.”
“Again, I will caution you, mademoiselle, from jumping to conclusions. At least she is not alone.”
“But she is alone.” How did he not see this? “Look at her, Monsieur Meier. At all of them. Their laughter and gaiety, it’s not real. It’s forced.”
To watch them now, with their hands wrapped around German arms and the desperate glee in their eyes, was to witness a charade of the worst kind. They pretended the men courting them were not the enemy. Most were Frenchwomen. A few Americans, like Vivian, but there were also sleek blonde German secretaries assigned to administrative work in Paris.
The Nazis in their SS uniforms, they understood it was a new day, a new world, where they were in charge. The victors playing a joke on the rest of them. Their eyes were watchful, while their mouths curved with a hint of amusement. Some of the women were their equals, dangerous and capable of conforming their ideals with the men they took to their beds. Camille hoped Vivian knew which were which and whom to avoid.
“Stop gaping,” Frank told her, his voice curt. “Here. Take these used napkins to the laundry, then deliver this package to Madame Miller’s room.” With a flick of his wrist, he revealed a nondescript envelope concealed inside the bundle of soiled linens. “Place the packet in the top right-hand drawer of her writing desk.”
Camille nodded.
“Touch nothing.”
She nodded again, knowing what was expected of her. In the past few weeks, she’d performed similar errands for the bartender. Always to Vivian’s room on the Rue Cambon side. Always an envelope that held what she suspected were identity cards. Possibly forged. Maybe not. She never looked. What she didn’t know now, she couldn’t be forced to tell later. But then an idea struck her. If Vivian was supplying false papers, could she not do so for Rachel and her family?
“Once you’re through with this chore,” Frank continued, “you may go home. And, Camille, drawing conclusions on insufficient information is never wise. Things aren’t always as they seem. Remember that the next time you glance over the guests and think you know who they are or why they behave the way they do.”
“Oui, monsieur.” Sufficiently reprimanded, Camille collected the bundled linens and left the bar without a backward glance.
Once inside Vivian’s room, Camille was, as always, struck with the lack of luxury compared to her former suite. Was that the reason she allowed the Nazi to seduce her? So that she would have access to the room that hid her valuables behind a heavy armoire? It was a terrible thought to have about a woman who’d shown Camille favor.
Quickly now, she moved to the writing desk and put the package away as Frank instructed. Behind her, the door opened, and Camille heard the click, click of high heels. She glanced over her shoulder and met Vivian’s gaze. The woman looked brooding, angry even—until she saw that it was Camille in her room, and her expression relaxed.
Spinning fully around, Camille stood under the unwavering gaze, her hands clasped at her waist. For several moments, the American divided her attention between Camille and the desk. Camille. The desk. Something in her eyes, a wariness, told her not to ask about identity cards and favors for a friend. She would ask later. That much Camille promised herself.
Still watching her, Vivian took a quick draw on the cigarette in her hand. The overhead light was bright and quite unkind, in that it showed Vivian’s true age. The gold streaks in her red hair tended toward ash, and the forty-plus years that had come and gone had left their mark in the small permanent creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Camille then realized she had yet to explain why she was in the room. “Frank sent me to deliver a package.”
Vivian nodded, her gaze locked on Camille, and then she went on the move. Camille followed her path across the room with her eyes, expecting the other woman to retrieve the package. Though she’d never done so before during one of these exchanges. Vivian did indeed sit at the small writing desk. But she opened a different drawer and pulled out a different envelope than the one Camille had deposited only moments before.
“Read this,” she said, keeping her voice neutral and a little distant.
It was the distance that made Camille’s heart palpitate. With shaking fingers, she teased open the envelope and retrieved the piece of paper inside. The words were in a foreign language, and completely unintelligible to a woman who spoke only her native tongue. As far as anybody knew. “I can’t.” Her face heated with embarrassment. “I only know how to read French.”
She didn’t mention her proficiency in the German language. Some secrets were best kept to herself.
“Right. Pardonne-moi. I wasn’t thinking.” Vivian took the paper. “This—” she waved the yellow slip in the air “—is from the American government and explains why I make nice with the detestable Nazi who has captured my suite for himself.”
Camille remembered Frank’s warning. Things aren’t always as they seem.
“The US government believes I am a willing collaborator with the Nazis.” She said this as if the very idea tasted vile in her mouth, and Camille felt a moment of raw shame. Had she not believed the same? Was that not the reason Frank had rebuked her?
“My own government has frozen my bank accounts because they believe, and I paraphrase, that my money will somehow fall into enemy hands.” She snorted. “As if I am some idiot woman incapable of protecting what is mine.”
Camille couldn’t blame Vivian for the bitter tone. “I... Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.” Frowning, she jumped to her feet and paced the length of the room, her breath coming in fast, angry snatches. “I will be manipulated by these evil men. This is what they say to me. What they think of me.” She paused, took another pass across the floorboards. “So now, I am to be given a pitiful allowance.” Vivian continued moving, her arms pumping, her face pale and furious. “I will not see a dime over five hundred dollars a month of my money—my money—until I prove my loyalty.”
Camille watched Vivian pace, her own lungs burning with outrage on the woman’s behalf. “What will you do?”
“What I must.”
Camille said nothing. She didn’t understand why Vivian was telling her this. Except, maybe she did. The woman had been put on an allowance that couldn’t possibly be enough to maintain her current lifestyle. Much would have to change. Economies would have to be put into place. There would be no more extra work for Camille, no more generous tips. No more special treatment of any kind. And certainly, no favors for a friend in need.
“Will you have to move to another hotel?” Or return to America?
“I cannot, not yet. Too many people rely on me.” She didn’t explain further. Camille didn’t need to hear the details. She knew about Frank’s gambling business, everyone knew. His forgery operation was not so well-known. And now Camille understood, without a doubt, that Vivian was involved in the latter.
“How will you manage?”
“There are ways. I have many items of value still in my possession and, as you know, more in my former suite.”
Camille remembered helping Vivian stow away her valuables in her former suite, hidden from the man living there now. The man she allowed to court her.
“My value is more than money. I know how to make friends with powerful men.” She gave Camille a meaningful look. “In this instance, I must become close to the Nazis. Not all of them, not even two of them, just...” She stopped, looked down at her feet, shook her head. “One. I shall make him my very special friend.”
Camille was not so naive as to mistake her meaning. Vivian intended to become von Bauer’s paramour. To use him as he would surely use her. It would be dangerous, and a terrible, awful way to serve the people who relied on her. Her mind searched for a proper response. “You are going to allow that Nazi to make you his...his...” She couldn’t say the word.
She didn’t have to. “Yes.”
“You will be hated by many.”
Vivian took another turn around the room, a short journey that ended almost as quickly as it began. “I have thought this through. I can no longer put off the inevitable.” She moved to stand before the mirror. The thoughtful expression did nothing to minimize her beauty. “I have been given tools with which to fight this war. It’s time I utilize them.”
“I don’t like it.”
“There is no more holding him off. He grows impatient. It is now or never.”
“I don’t understand.” But she feared she knew exactly Vivian meant to do.
“My relationship cannot only appear real. It must be real.” Her look of absolute dread did not match the statement. “This is where you come in. I need your help, Camille.”
She repeated her earlier words. “I don’t understand.”
“I want you to start a chain of gossip among the staff. You will give details of my liaison with von Bauer, only a few, most of them vague. Your coworkers will come to the right conclusion.”
Camille was appalled. “I don’t gossip. You know this. It’s why you brought me into your confidence all those months ago.”
Taking her hands, Vivian held her gaze. “Your integrity is one of your most endearing qualities, as is your loyalty. I ask for both now. You will spread this rumor for me. Everyone must believe I am von Bauer’s willing paramour, including your friend, Rachel. She more than anyone must believe I am, for all intents and purposes, what some call a horizontal collaborator.”
“Why must I spread these lies?”
“They won’t be lies.”
It was exactly what Camille had not wanted to hear, and everything she’d feared.
“If the staff is gossiping about me, the guests will eventually hear the rumors. The power of a good scandal has no social boundaries. Word will get out about my relationship and eventually circle around to von Bauer, who will see this as confirmation of my affections.”
This plan of hers made a strange, awful, horrible sort of sense, except for one small portion. “But Rachel,” Camille said. “Surely, she doesn’t need to believe these lies.”
“There you are wrong. A woman willing to become a Nazi’s mistress cannot befriend a Jew, not even by way of a friend of a friend. It’s too dangerous.”
“For you.”
“For us both. It would not be wise to shed unnecessary attention on the girl.”
She was right, of course. Still, Camille pulled her hands free, her teeth grinding together in frustrated agony. “You’ve truly thought this through?”
“I have.”
“You are certain there is no other way?”
“You will help me?”
She nodded. But in truth, she wasn’t sure her participation was needed. The staff already gossiped about Vivian, and many of the others who slept with Germans. When she said as much, Vivian took both her hands again, this time in a grip so gentle that mist had more substance. “If I am to do this terrible thing, I need to know that someone sees me, the real me, not the Nazi’s mistress, or a vapid woman seeking her own comfort and luxury at the expense of her morals.”
The wording made Camille wince. “You are sure there is no other way?” Perhaps if she asked the question enough times, Vivian would eventually give a different answer.
“My course is set. So, Camille, you will be my ally in this ugly business?”
Camille made her mind go blank. It was all she could do. It lasted only a moment, then: “What about Frank? Will he know?”
“Only you.” She squeezed Camille’s hands. “I trust only you.”
Another burden laid upon her shoulders. “I hate that people will think badly of you, and I won’t be able to correct them.”
Vivian released her. “Having you on my side will take some of the sting away.”
Would it be enough for the widow, living a lie with only one true ally? Camille didn’t think so. If the Germans lost this war, and they would—they must—what would become of her? Would collaboration be labeled as treason? Would she be tried and hanged? Perhaps her clandestine work would outweigh sleeping with the enemy.
Vivian would do this, Camille knew, with or without her help. She could not, in good conscience, let her walk into a viper’s nest alone. “All right, I’ll do it. Tell me what I am to say.”
It took fewer than three days for the rumor to spread through the staff, a journey full of expected and unexpected twists. Each lie grew in depth and size, gathering momentum. At regular intervals, Camille, coached by Vivian herself, added a few half-truths. Others added their own, attaching salacious details that shocked Camille when the stories wound their way back to her. Apparently, Vivian Miller spent the night in her former suite with its current occupant every night—not true. She wore diamonds stolen from wealthy Jews—possibly true, though Camille prayed it wasn’t. And there was more. Always more.
On the third day, when she and Rachel were walking home, her friend asked, “Is it true? Has Vivian Miller become the mistress of a Nazi?”
“Yes.” The worst part was that Camille knew it was no longer a lie.
“I thought you said we could trust her.”
Camille took a long deep breath, the sound rattling in her lungs. “I was wrong.”
It hurt to say the words, but say them she did. She would not, could not, take them back, no matter how disgusted Rachel looked receiving the news, and no matter how awful Camille felt telling the lie.